Karoo learners participate in international robotics competition

Learners from Carnarvon High School, Northern Cape, traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia, for the World Robot Olympiad Open Championship (from the left): Roswell Pipes, Jerome Visagie, Eugenio Nuwegeld, Shevodian Farmer, Lincoln De Wee, Farren Louw. Photos supplied.

Learners from Carnarvon High School, Northern Cape, traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia, earlier this month to represent South Africa in the World Robot Olympiad Open Championship.

The competition hosted over 200 teams from around the world. The students have two minutes to programme a robot to autonomously traverse obstacles and solve missions. They use LEGO and robotic materials.

Two teams from the Northern Cape participated, with the youngest learner aged 14, the oldest 17. The one team, the Automation Avengers, came 14th in the senior division and received a silver medal. The other team, the Circuit Breakers, was placed 28th and received bronze.

“One of the kids – she’s from a very, very small place – when we arrived there, she said she couldn’t believe that she had traveled so far, and that she was now in another continent, another country,” said Chantel Mathison, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) school professional officer.

SARAO supports the Carnarvon High School program and funds robotics programmes in eight other Northern Cape schools.

Mathison said she was happy with the students’ performance. Few teams were from African countries.

Odwa Magabuko, SARAO robotics schools programme coordinator and a judge at the competition, said it’s a struggle in South Africa to get learners interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. A key motivation behind SARAO is to bridge the educational divide in schools by exposing rural learners to today’s technology and innovation.

Carnarvon High in the Karoo is the closest school to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, also an initiative of SARAO.

“We want to try and make sure that the learners and kids that are growing up in the small towns can end up being the astronauts and scientists behind the whole project,” Magabuko said.

Competing at a high profile event built up the learners’ confidence, Mathison said. The programme helps learners, many of whom come from broken households, to recognise one another’s strengths and persevere through challenges.

Jeanine Mathison runs daily afternoon sessions, helping learners with programming and research. She says it’s amazing to see how the learners’ robotics skills have developed.

“We want to show to learners that the world is evolving and that they can be the future engineers,” says Mathison. “And it doesn’t matter where you are from, you are able to achieve great things in life.”

The competition hosted over 200 teams from around the world.

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